Secret Diaries, Biofiction and Pride and Prejudice

 A new paper exploring some of the para literature published around the Brontës:

Syrie James’s The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë: A Neo-Victorian Biofiction of Pride and Prejudice

Dídac Llorens-Cubedo

ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies, no. 43, Nov. 2022, pp. 63-85 

UNED. España

Syrie James’s The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (2009) is a first-person narrative of the last ten years of the Victorian novelist’s life. It is a neo-Victorian celebrity biofiction, tending to the hagiographic. It draws on various biographies of Brontë, on her letters and on her autobiographical novels. Interestingly, it also evokes Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a book that Brontë famously disliked. The present article considers Secret Diaries within the parameters of neo-Victorian biofiction; it identifies parallelisms with Austen’s classic; it reassesses the relationship between Brontë and Austen; and, in doing all this, shows that the chronological scope of Neo-Victorianism is broad.

'I went down a rabbit hole with the Brontës after that'

The Washington Post has a food-for-thought kind of article on why we shouldn't look for more Jane Austens (or Brontës) by Devoney Looser, author of Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës.

For almost a century, sleuthing critics have been taking a trowel to the literary past in search of forgotten female novelists. How many undiscovered Jane Austens or Charlotte Brontës, they wondered, had been buried by sexist beliefs about the limits of women’s genius? Quests to find lost figures crystallized after Virginia Woolf’s stirring 1929 “A Room of One’s Own,” and by the 1980s a staggering number of early female writers had been unearthed by second-wave feminist literary critics who enjoined us to read and evaluate them.

Some of these early novelists wrote for themselves or private audiences, but a surprisingly large number turned out to have published their work to a wider readership, only to have it forgotten. The task of recovering them is telegraphed in the title of Dale Spender’s “Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen” (1986). Austen’s genius remained a given, but the reality that many “good” predecessors had been sidelined by sexism was laid bare. Nevertheless, no other early works of fiction by women have yet been bumped up from “good” to “great.” Why?

Shouldn’t we have discovered more Austens and Brontës — or even another writer as singular as Mary Shelley — among these pioneering hundreds by now? A cynic might answer that we haven’t because there aren’t any others. To this way of thinking, three female geniuses (or five, maybe six, if we include every Brontë and George Eliot) survived because a meritocracy of authorship worked out perfectly.

A more optimistically patient person might answer that, even after all these years of feminist archaeology, we still haven’t looked hard enough. It may be that finding female fiction writers who’ve been absent from history for more than a century requires another century for collective recognition and rediscovery.

But perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that the ways we’ve been looking are part of the problem. When we go in search of new Austens or Brontës, we’re imagining we’ll find novels that remind us positively of theirs. We claim we’re searching for something new, and equally original, but in effect we’re seeking out literary echoes, not wholly distinct virtuoso performances. [...]

If it’s easy to see these parallels, though, it’s partly because we’re so used to looking for Austen-ness or Brontë-ness. I’ve often been asked whether any of the other 18th- and 19th-century female writers I’ve read or taught were “as good as Jane Austen.” Reader, I have gotten so tired of this question. It has no good answers.

Whenever I replied “No,” I worried that I’d wronged a female writer who’d already been wrongly disregarded. Could this question ever be answered in the affirmative? Surely no author could out-Austen Jane Austen, any more than a contemporary writer could, say, out-Joyce James Joyce. For too long, we’ve used the few women who made the cut into the canon as our sole guides to seek out lost or undervalued voices. It’s time to try new methods and modes of reading. [...]

Revisiting heavily imitated authors of centuries past absolutely won’t catch every deserving lost work or writer. It could, however, get us closer to a more expansive notion of what the category “classic” might have been — or could yet be. What’s evident is that Austen’s and the Brontës’ deserved literary triumphs have come at a cost. Our enduring love of them and their works may have inadvertently prevented other worthy female novelists from coming into better focus. We must look beyond these long-acknowledged greats if we ever hope to count more of them as brilliant.

The Guardian asks singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner about the books of her life.

The book I discovered later in life

Somehow, I had never read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre until last year. The language is truly exceptional and the story is so thrilling. I went down a rabbit hole with the Brontës after that. It’s especially heartbreaking, the way their tragic family history is recast in their literature.

The Cut interviews poet Amanda Gorman.

So what do you do at the end of your day instead?

I love playing ASMR on my computer. I’m the type of person where I do get that calming, soothing feeling. So I’ll play some type of night-rain, fire-crackling ASMR. And then I’ll drink some tea and have that as my sacred time to read a beloved author. I’m often reading Shakespeare at night, if not Charlotte Brontë or Anne of Green Gables — kind of just classics that make me feel as if I’m a little kid again and just enjoying language and storytelling and fantasy. (Maya Allen)

Northern Life magazine features Rosalia Ferrara aka Brontë Bitch.

The world had stopped during lockdown, but Rosalia’s plans for a new venture did not.

“It was then that I had my eureka moment, why don’t I create a merchandise range inspired by the Brontë family? Not just the sisters, but also include their brother, Branwell, he had an interesting character too, a talented poet, writer and painter!” explained Rosalia. “I wanted my own Brontë t-shirt, a cool one! I stumbled over some obvious copies, the images we all know of the Brontë sisters. I wanted to launch an edgier range of merchandise. I was bouncing ideas off my partner and friends. I went full circle although I did also like Brontë Babe but that was taken.” 

After a search online for a cool Brontë themed t-shirt to wear, Rosalia found that she wasn’t too spoilt for choice and decided to put matters into her own hands, from there, Brontë Bitch was born.

Rosalia was worried Brontë Bitch could get misconstrued; but wants to make people aware it’s not meant in a derogatory way at all. “I was nervous to put myself out there, I went full circle and thought right, it’s brave and bold, just like the Brontë sisters!” explained Rosalia. “Other independent creatives came in to play, including Anna Cleary, a graphic designer guru who specialises in brand identity!”

Brontë Bitch features illustrations on vibrantly-coloured tote bags, tea towels, greeting cards and t-shirts. Rosalia visioned a modern take on the Brontë family through illustration, some of the prints include different styles of art and design, but feature the quotes from the well-known books and poems by the Brontës.

Anna, created the Brontë Bitch logo, and is partly responsible for the first image of the brand. The second design is by Bomi Carrot Art, whose design focuses on Emily Brontë and her love of animals on a windswept Top Withens. Another design was created by Doodlher, this idea was to bring the brother, Branwell, back to life.

“I love all three pieces. All the Brontë Bitch designs are unique, you will not find any of them on the high street. My aim for this series is familiarity but with a cool edge.” [...]

But does the Brontë devotee have a favourite Brontë novel? “The Brontë sisters wrote some of the best poems and novels in the history of English literature. This is a difficult question, but it has to be the classics, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Perhaps this could be a follow up interview on the subject alone!” laughed Rosalia. (Sophia Smith)

The North Coast Courier (South Africa) reviews Emily giving it 3.5 stars out of 5.

Emily is a biopic partially re-imagined, drawing as much on the imagination of Emily Brontë as her life itself.

A long-brewing passion project for actress turned director, Frances O’Connor, Emily grasps at something greater but never fully lives up to its promise.

But re-contextualising one of history’s most enduring and enigmatic authors is never futile, and the youth-friendly casting of Emma Mackey (of Sex Education fame) will surely help to get eyes on it.

And Mackey certainly proves her worth beyond the cynicism of marketing, holding the screen with the same aloof, casual depiction of genius as Keira Knightley in The Imitation Game.

She plays Brontë as a woman on the precipice of history, held back only by the fear of her own potential until it grows too large to contain.

Her version of the Wuthering Heights author is timidly precocious, seeking to both dull and invigorate her live-wire brain with opium and sex, the latter with her local priest (Fleabag fans rejoice!).

She chases disorder, but never fully relinquishes control in the way that her beloved brother Branwell does. [...]

Emily is a good watch anchored by Mackey’s fantastic lead performance, but it occasionally meanders over 131 minutes before a rushed denouement undercuts its careful pacing.

If it gets more people to seek out canonical literature however, then all the better for it. (James Anderson)

The New York Times crossword had a Brontë-related clue and answer.

16A. The “Jean Rhys novel that’s a response to ‘Jane Eyre’” is WIDE SARGASSO SEA, which features a character based on Bertha Mason, the first wife of Edward Rochester, who was driven mad and wound up trapped in the attic at Thornton Hall.

Hürriyet (Turkey) reviews the Turkish translation of Jolien Janzing's De Meester.

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The Parsonage Room by Room

The YouTube channel Memory Seekers recently uploaded a video with a twenty minutes room by room tour of the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

This time we take a tour of the Brontë Sisters House, the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, West Yorkshire. Last week we told you the life story of Emily Brontë and her sisters Anne and Charlotte. We also visited many of the places that the Brontë Sisters lived or frequented. This time we take an in-depth look at the Brontë Parsonage. The Home of the Brontë Sisters for almost all of their short lives. We will take a room-by-room tour of the house, and look closely at many of the personal items that the Brontë Society has been able to keep or purchase to create the largest collection of Brontë artefacts in the world.

On the same channel, you can also find several other Brontë-related videos:

• Charlotte, Anne & Emily Bronte - Walking in the footsteps of the Brontë Sisters

• Enchanting English Countryside Hamlet of Wycoller, Lancashire England

• 17th Century English Hall - Oakwell Hall - Elizabethan - West Yorkshire

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Elizabeth Bishop took Charlotte Brontë very seriously

First of all, The Brontë Parsonage Museum is featured in the podcast Meet Me at the Museum, so it's worth a listen.

Writer Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and The Instant, takes her friend, poet Zaffar Kunial, to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire. Together they explore the former home of the Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – and see where some of their most famous novels were written. From the dining table where the sisters shared their work, to early reviews of Wuthering Heights, intimate objects and artefacts prompt conversations about Amy and Zaffar’s own inspirations as writers. And, after exploring the house and museum, they head out into the landscape and discover a poem in the wild.

BBC News features The Old George Hotel in Leeds now that an old picture of it has been rediscovered.

A photograph of the Old George Hotel, which Charlotte Brontë was a guest at, is one of the images found by staff at Leeds Central Library. [...]

The building became The Old George in 1815 with Charlotte Brontë later dropping in on her way to Belgium and describing its interior in her 1847 novel Jane Eyre.

More reviews of Emily: AD (Netherlands) gives it 3 stars out of 5.

Over schrijfster Emily Brontë, beroemd om haar enige roman Wuthering Heights, is maar weinig bekend. De makers van een film over haar (slechts 30 jaar korte) leven konden dus vrij hun gang gaan. In Brontë’s meesterwerk uit 1847 dat onder meer geloof en onvoorwaardelijke liefde omver kegelt, staan genoeg hints. Ze moet een rebel zijn geweest, een vrije geest die haar tijd ver vooruit was. Een boze, misschien wel depressieve vrouw. Debuterend scenarist regisseur Frances O’Connor (die we vooral kennen als actrice in films als A.I. en Mansfield Park) probeert naarstig in haar getroebleerde hoofd te kruipen. Toch wordt het nooit veel meer dan een voorbeeldig kostuumdrama. Emily boeit beslist, maar de schrijfster verdient eigenlijk een film die meer buiten de lijntjes durft te kleuren. (Gudo Tienhooven) (Translation)

From Dagens Nyheter (Sweden):

”Emily” rör sig fritt och obekymrat mellan litteraturhistoriska fakta och fiktion. En ovanligt vital och tilltalande skenbiografi som hittar sin egen sanning i en vacker spegling av romanen ”Svindlande höjder”. En film som formar sig till ett sexigt, romantiskt, sorgligt och vackert fyrverkeri av känslor, starkt personifierade av Emma Mackey (”Sex education”) som fullständigt äger duken i varje ögonblick. (Helena Lindblad) (Translation)

From NDR (Germany):

Was sie zur leidenschaftlichen Geschichte von Cathy und Heathcliff inspiriert haben könnte - darüber kann Frances O‘Connor nur mutmaßen. Sie schenkt der jung gestorbenen Autorin eine Liebesbeziehung, die sie vermutlich nie hat erleben dürfen. Emily nur Feder schwingend am Schreibtisch zu zeigen, wäre auch weniger filmtauglich gewesen.

Es steckt immerhin eine innere Wahrheit in der Art, wie die Filmheldin ihre Welt erlebt. Als Vertreterin der romantischen Generation begeistert sie sich für die Gedichte von Lord Byron, raucht mit ihrem Bruder Branwell gerne mal ein Opium-Pfeifchen und ist wie er empfänglich für freigeistiges Gedankengut.

"Emily" ist also ein Fantasie-Porträt - aber ein sehr hübsch inszeniertes. Mit überzeugenden Darstellerinnen, überraschenden Kamerabildern und einem zauberhaften Soundtrack von Abel Korzeniowski. (Walli Müller) (Translation)

There's another review in Saarbrücker Zeitung (Germany).

The Boston Globe interviews writer Darryl Pinckney.

BOOKS: What kind of reader were you before you met Elizabeth Hardwick?

PINCKNEY: Probably rather narrow in my taste, or predictable—a reader in need of advice.

BOOKS: Who were the writers she recommended to you?

PINCKNEY: The poet Elizabeth Bishop. Also Flannery O’Connor, Jean Rhys and D.H. Lawrence. She was very keen on his stories. She made people who’d become corny not corny. She took Charlotte Brontë very seriously. I can remember the first line of a conversation she started with Mary McCarthy. She said, “I don’t believe Jane Eyre.” As a narrator they didn’t trust her. I also still keep in mind what she said about always reading poetry before writing prose. (Amy Sutherland)

El mundo (Spain) features the Spanish translation of Tom Gauld's Revenge of the Librarians.

James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, las hermanas Brontë o Franz Kafka son algunos de sus habituales, escritores canónicos convertidos en adorables monigotes que son poco más que la evolución de un punto y una línea. (Vanessa Graell) (Translation)

The Scotsman features 'England’s most remote house' comparing it to Wuthering Heights.

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With Brontë Intensity

We know very little about this poetry book that has been just published::

With Brontë Intensity: Expressive Contemplations

by Patty Robertson

Independently Published

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1692643737

The lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, Branwell Brontë, and the Reverend Patrick Brontë and the whirlwind of Bronte literature dressed in comparable passion and insight.

Sweped in local flavor, relish this collection of  moving poetry appreciating the Brontë family lives and works.
Patty Robertson has published Jane Austen's Imagination, and Jane Austen's Advice: 100 Lessons on Life.

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European Emily

We have several European reviews of Emily today. Der Freitag (Germany) has an in-depth article both on the film and Emily's life and work as well as her 'afterlife' in the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

So gesehen scheint gar nicht abwegig, was die Schauspielerin Frances O’Connor nun in Emily, ihrem Debüt als Regisseurin und Drehbuchautorin, versucht. Bisher galt Emily Brontë als eigenbrötlerische Soziopathin, die ihren vor Leidenschaft berstenden Roman „nur“ der eigenen Fantasiewelt abgerungen hat. In O’Connors so freier wie mitreißender Film-Biografie ist Brontë eine Frau der Tat und verarbeitet in Wuthering Heights eigene Erfahrungen, von einem Zug an der Opiumpfeife ihres geliebten Bruders bis hin zu einer leidenschaftlichen Affäre. Als „Rebellin, Außenseiterin und Genie“ (so formuliert es die Werbung) wird sie zur feministischen Heldin. Und mit Emma Mackey in der Hauptrolle potenziert sich diese Anschlussfähigkeit an die Gegenwart: Die französisch-britische Schauspielerin ist ein Star der populären Netflix-Serie Sex Education (wo ihre Figur Maeve Wiley unter anderem durch den Konsum von Jane-Austen-, nicht aber von Brontë-Büchern auffällt). [...]

Im Museumsshop, zwischen Büchern, Kunstkarten und verschiedenen „Bron-Tea“-Sorten, stehen vier Kästchen in einem Regal. Hier kann man sich für je 75 Pence mit kleinen Buttons den „Teams“ von Charlotte, Emily, Branwell und Anne zuordnen. Die Kästchen von Branwell und Anne sind noch sehr gut gefüllt. Deutlich beliebter scheinen die älteren Schwestern zu sein: Von deren Buttons ist nur noch ein Drittel übrig. Draußen hat sich mittlerweile der berühmte neblige Dunst über die Dächer von Haworth hergemacht. Zur Linken laden Weiden und windzerzauste Bäume zum Wandern über die „stürmischen Höhen“. Von rechts, aus dem Tal, nähert sich eine größere Besucherschar. Darunter sind auffallend viele Mädchen im Teenageralter. Oben angekommen, schauen sie abwechselnd auf ihre Smartphones und staunend hoch zum alten Pfarrhaus. Es sieht ganz so aus, als würde das „Team Emily“ heute noch Verstärkung bekommen. (Ralf Krämer) (Translation)

Berliner Morgenpost (Germany) reviews it too.

Was die Regisseurin reizt, sind die Leerstellen dieser Biografie – und was Emily Brontë auch für heutige junge Frauen interessant macht. Wie sie als völlige Außenseiterin zu sich selbst fand und unbeirrt ihren Weg ging. Mit großartigen Bildern der spröden, kargen Landschaft und der spröden wortkargen Menschen, die darin leben, gelingt O’Connor eine ganz sinnliche Annäherung.

Emma Mackey hat als Emily nicht viel zu sagen, hat aber einen eindringlichen Blick, in dem viel Ungesagtes transparent wird. Und durch den modernen Minimal-Music-Soundtrack gibt es einen starken Bruch zu dem Kostümfilm. Ein Historiendrama, das so ganz heutig wirkt. Nicht wenige könnten dadurch animiert werden, mal wieder, oder endlich einmal, „Die Sturmhöhe“ zu lesen. (Peter Zander) (Translation)

Trouw (Netherlands) gives it 4 stars.

Emily Brontë heeft voor het eerst seks met de nieuwe kapelaan. Ze hebben in het geheim afgesproken. Haar ademhaling wordt zwaarder, de muziek klinkt heftiger. Maar we zijn in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw, op het Engelse platteland. Eerst moet de kapelaan het korset zien los te krijgen. De erotische spanning stijgt.

Het is een opmerkelijke scène in Emily, de film over het leven van de Engelse schrijfster Emily Brontë. We weten namelijk helemaal niet of ze een stormachtige affaire beleefde met de kapelaan. Over het leven van Emily Brontë is weinig bekend. Ja, ze schreef in haar korte leven – ze stierf op haar dertigste aan tuberculose – één roman die wereldberoemd werd: Wuthering Heights (1847). Een boek over een intense, tumultueuze, vernietigende liefde. Onder de vele verfilmingen van het boek, viel die van Andrea Arnold nog het meest op: Arnold schiep een duistere, sensuele wereld waarin weinig werd gepraat en des te meer werd gevoeld. [...]

Net zoals de negentiende-eeuwse heldin in de nieuwe Sisi-film Corsage, heeft ook Emily seks en zit ze aan de opium. Evenals Sisi heeft Emily een tatoeage laten zetten. Ze lonkt naar vrijheid. De hitsige kapelaan heeft iets weg van de hot priest in de succesvolle Britse comedyserie Fleabag.

De film geeft Emily niet alleen een modern voorkomen, O’Connor geeft haar ook een echte affaire. Ze zegt daarmee dus ook dat Wuthering Heights niet per se ontsproten is uit haar rijke verbeelding, maar dat Emily put uit ervaring. Dat is een vrije interpretatie. De film doet alsof het zich allemaal zo heeft afgespeeld in het prachtige, mistige heuvelland in West Yorkshire. (Belinda van de Graaf) (Translation)

Uppsala Nya Tidning (Sweden) reviews it too.

Broadway World reviews Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Emma Rice's re-imagined Wuthering Heights is audacious, ingenious, and visually stunning, taking Bronte's romantic tale of the ill-fated lovers Catherine and Heathcliff and amps up the dark side. In her words, she saw a story "not of romance, but of brutality, cruelty, and revenge," and that vision coupled with some exemplary performances and stunning visuals provides a stark reminder of the power of theatre to explore and expose the ugly underbelly of human emotions.

While some people may see tinkering with sacrosanct classics a no-no (Broadway's Oklahoma remount), Rice's Wuthering Heights boldly goes where none have, adding a haunting musical score, a Greek chorus and a level of domestic abuse that is entirely unsympathetic to its main characters. The character s are all flawed; the brooding Heathcliff (Liam Tamne), the spiteful Catherine (Leah Brotherhead), the bullying Hindley (Tama Phethean) and the cuckolded Edgar (Sam Archer). [...]

Ian Ross' score is haunting and moody with a 19th century flavor highlighted by the percussion and cello. The Yorkshire Moors, led by a wonderful performance by Jordan Laviniere are the Greek chorus providing added exposition. Rice's staging is a wonder, making the most of the Roda Theatres' expansive open stage. Using a minimal set design of stacked chairs, a wall of glass window panes and a ragged wooden door, set designer Vicki Mortimer creates magic with simple props like books on the end of a pole to create the illusion of the flapping wings of birds or the use of jump ropes that bind the actors mobility. (Steve Murray)

Still on stage, Create a Stir (Canada) reviews Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto: The Little Mermaid at the York Theatre.

The tunes this year are among the best in the history of the Panto, as music director Veda Hille puts brilliant twists on a generation-crossing mix that spans Lizzo and the Go-Go’s. The absolute showstopper, though, is Amanda Sum impossibly nailing Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”—no small feat. Sum manages to capture its warbling highs and whacked-out key shifts, and makes it quirkily her own—Azarbad holding her own when she joins in. (Janet Smith)

Evening Standard reports that the National Portrait Gallery will get a new wing as part of the current refurbishment.

The National Portrait Gallery in London will get a new wing as part of its refurbishment when it reopens in 2023.

The Blavatnik Wing will host more than one hundred years of British portraits in nine galleries as part of the gallery’s Inspiring People project.

Paintings of naturalist Charles Darwin, and writers Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, the Brontë sisters and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor will help visitors to explore society and culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. (Charlotte McLaughlin)

Ilkley Gazette announces that Diane Fare of the Brontë Parsonage Museum will be giving a talk on Branwell at Rawdon Community Library next week.

Rawdon Community Library Lecture Series continues next week when Diane Fare, of the Brontë Parsonage Museum will give a talk on the life of Branwell Brontë.

A spokesperson said: "Diane has been coming regularly to talk about members of the Brontë family. Her talks are always informative and very entertaining.

"Her talk on Branwell Brontë (at 2pm on Tuesday, November 29) promises to be intriguing and enlightening.

"Branwell was a promising poet and artist, but lost his job after having an affair with his employer’s wife, succumbed to drug and alcohol addiction and died at 31.

"Tickets are just £5 (£3 students) and can be bought on the door or in advance from the library. Refreshments (non-alcoholic!) included."

The talk is at Rawdon Community Library, Micklefield Park, New Road Side, Rawdon. (Claire Lomax)

Varsity has its Arts team recommend their 'favourite cosy autumn reads'.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Isabel Dempsey (arts editor)

Okay yes, it’s a bit of a pretentious choice but I’m an English student so cut me some slack. Besides, with the anticipation for the start of university, the sombre weather, and the reintroduction of knitwear into my wardrobe, when else am I meant to romanticise my degree as some dark academia pursuit? ‘Jane Eyre’ has genuinely always been one of my favourite books, and what says autumn better than cloudy Yorkshire moors, beautiful old manor houses, and (spoiler) crazed ex-wives locked away in an attic? There’s just something so comforting in the familiarity that this dark and moody classic provides me. Horribly (and anti-feministly) I find myself indulging in its beautifully toxic romance every time, greedily eating up all the angst and turmoil it provides.

Sad to see we have come to a point when you need to ask for forgiveness for enjoying Jane Eyre. It's a book of fiction, people, not a treaty on feminism or relationships.

The Scarborough News lists the 'Best books to listen to while on winter walk' and one of them is

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

A classic never dies, and that is definitely the case with ‘Wuthering Heights’, making it perfect for a rainy after-work walk. Positioned in the cold, unforgiving vastness of the Yorkshire Moors, the story is fuelled by forbidden romance, ghosts of the past, and heart-wrenching displays of passion and grief. What more can you ask for in a winter read? (Sue Wilkinson)

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Brontë Studies. Volume 47. Issue 4

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 47 Issue 4,  November 2022) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Editorial
pp.  219-222 Author:  Sarah Fanning, Carolyn Van Der Meer

An Orphan’s Dissent: Charlotte Brontë’s Spiritual Vision in Jane Eyre
pp.  223-236 Author: Andrew J. Weller
Abstract: 
Although often considered subversive of religion, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) employs discrete biblical language and allusions to present a dissenting feminist historicist hermeneutics. As a daughter of reverend Patrick Brontë, Charlotte’s spiritual vision is particularly significant but overlooked due to her use of what I am calling a dialectical misdirection. I show how even the subversive statements towards Christian teachings articulate the moral philosophy that guides Jane’s decisions thus weaving together plot sequences to ultimately provide autonomy. Through typological assessment and a cultural critique of mid-century Evangelical doctrines, it appears Jane’s faith emboldens her resistance to systemic oppression.

Charlotte Brontë and the ‘Horrors of Homeless Destitution’: How Brontë’s Relationship to Haworth Illuminates the Importance of Permanent Shelter in Jane Eyre and Villette
pp.  237-248   Author: Natalie Brown
Abstract
Charlotte Brontë is closely associated today with Haworth Parsonage. Our identification of Brontë with Haworth, however, obscures the precarity of her hold on the Parsonage. Brontë’s occupancy was predicated upon her father’s employment as the perpetual curate of Haworth, and Brontë knew she would be forced to leave upon his death. This article argues that Brontë’s precarity as clergyman’s daughter whose shelter was contingent upon his employment explains the prominence she gives in Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853) to women who lack secure homes and their quests for permanent shelter. Attention to her preoccupation with permanent shelter reveals the difficulty of separating the emotional, familial and physical components of ‘home’ and allows readers to view her as writer more attuned to structural problems than scholarship emphasising her novels’ seemingly individual or class-complicit solutions sometimes recognizes.

‘[P]Lainer, If Possible, than Ever’: Plainness and Self-Representation in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Henry Hastings’
pp. 249-260 Author: Mona AlBassam
Abstract: 
Charlotte Brontë’s juvenilia, unlike her mature novels with their independent plain heroines, is dominated by female beauties who represent her imaginary aristocratic world. The desire for beauty that dominated Brontë’s early writings is abandoned in the tale ‘Henry Hastings’ (1839) and the heroine’s plainness comes to create a substitute for the image of female beauty. In considering Elizabeth Hasting’s plainness as a form of self-representation, this article challenges the perception of plainness as merely an indication of the heroine’s invisibility or more profoundly a reflection her interiority and morality. Instead, this paper explores the exteriority and subversiveness of Elizabeth’s plainness in the narrative. Plainness in ‘Henry Hastings’ is not only related to homeliness but also goes into the realm of plainness as a self-imposition, particularly through dress. The heroine’s beauty or on the other hand, her plainness, as I will argue, comes to offer different positions of making the self visible to the dominant male gaze in the late juvenilia.

Fierce Courtship: Animal Judgement in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley
pp. 261-273 Author:  Valerie L. Stevens
Abstract:
This article considers how Tartar serves as a unique type of guard dog in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley. While we expect guard dogs to ward off burglars, Tartar uses protective fierceness to fortify Shirley’s home and body from unsought romantic invasions, necessary given her gender positioning. Sometimes Tartar’s judgement aligns with Shirley’s wishes, as when he helps to forcefully remove the insufferable Mr Donne from Shirley’s property. However, Tartar’s high valuation of Shirley’s eventual husband, Louis, while the heiress still resents the tutor reveals Tartar’s agency as he guides Shirley’s choices like a respected father. Once Tartar helps to bring Shirley and Louis together, Louis can then take over the paternal role of guardian. Brontë’s animals shape the marriage plot, allowing Tartar a powerful role within the text.

Book Reviews
Lit for Little Hands: Jane Eyre
pp 274-276 Author: Sara Pearson

The Business of Reading
pp. 276-278 Author: Sara L. Pearson

The Red Monarch 

pp. 278-279 Author: Sarah Powell

Boiled Milk: Anne Brontë’s Final Journey
pp. 279-280 Author: Adelle Hay

Jane Eyre in German Lands: The Import of Romance, 1848–1918
pp. 281-283 Author: Sara L. Pearson

The Sexual Politics of Jane Eyre: Representations of Fear and the Construction of Text in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
pp. 284-286 Author: Sara L. Pearson

Octobwr 6, 2022

Timelines in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
pp. 286-288 Author:  

‘Bad or Mad?: Branwell Brontë, Mental Health and Alcoholism in Sally Wainwright’s To Walk Invisible’

pp. 289-290  Author: Carolyne Van Der Meer

Classical Adaptations: 3 Classic Scripts Adapted for Film

p. 291 Author:  Carolyne Van Der Meer

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A different book each time

Stuff (New Zealand) interviews zoologist Dr Andrea Graves.

What book do you go back to time and time again to re-read?

I’m not a re-reader, but every decade or so I read Wuthering Heights and it’s a different book each time. (André Chumko)

Dorset Echo reports on a lecture on Jane Eyre given by Dr Tracy Hayes.

A gothic studies specialist visited a Weymouth school to host an educational session on classic novel Jane Eyre.

Gothic studies specialist Dr Tracy Hayes visited Wey Valley Academy to hold a lesson for a Year 9 class on Jane Eyre, an 1847 classic by Charlotte Brontë. [...]

One student said: “This was an inspiring session where the text was contextualised as a gothic novel.” (Cristiano Magaglio)

NRC (Netherlands) reviews Emily giving it 4 stars out of 5.

Films over de getalenteerde Brontë-zussen – Charlotte, Emily en Anne – waren er al, zoals Les soeurs Brontë (1979) en To Walk Invisible (2016). Met Emily focust debuterend regisseur Frances O’Connor, een voormalig actrice, zich nu op de middelste van de drie zusters, Emily Jane, schrijfster van slechts één boek: Wuthering Heights. Emma Mackey, bekend uit Sex Education, speelt de verlegen, sociaal onhandige maar ook rebelse Emily uitstekend. In het dorp staat Emily bekend als „de zonderling”, maar O’Connor toont haar vooral als vrije geest. De film begint als Emily stervende is en Charlotte haar toevoegt dat Wuthering Heights „een lelijk boek is, vol egoïstische personages die alleen om zichzelf geven”.

Daarna concentreert Emily zich op twee verhoudingen, de speciale band die zij heeft met broer Branwell, een onaangepast figuur die zich meer en meer verliest in drank en opium, en haar relatie van aantrekken en afstoten met William Weightman, de knappe geestelijke die haar strenge vader, een dominee, bijstaat in de pastorie. Daarbij valt op dat Emily vrij omspringt met de feiten, Brontë-biografen vermoeden dat het Anne was die een relatie met Weightman had. Misschien ook betreurenswaardig dat O’Connors film toch weer een man nodig heeft om haar verhaal te vertellen. Jammer, want het meeslepende Emily gaat uiteindelijk over de mysteriën van het schrijverschap: waar komt het vandaan? De lyrische manier waarop O’Connor het landschap van Yorkshire filmt, geeft een belangrijke aanwijzing. Ook mooi hoe de binnenwereld van Emily centraal staat, met scènes waarin de dialogen weggedraaid worden en de opzwepende muziek van Abel Korzeniowski of het omgevingsgeluid de overhand krijgen. (André Waardenburg) (Translation)

Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden) reviews it too. And RNZ has a short audio clip on it.

Museums Association announces that Rebecca Yorke has been appointed Brontë Parsonage Museum director.

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Emily's OST

Spitfire Audio shares plenty of information on Abel Korzeniowski's score for Emily:

A sixteen minutes behind-the-score video with the composer himself:

An interview with the composer:

“Emily Brontë, in combination with Emma Mackey’s performance, creates such a vibrant portrayal,” Korzeniowski explains. “We couldn’t tell this story by having her solely constrained to her natural surroundings. The whole point is that Emily’s internal life and her imagination was so much larger than everything around her. Music was a natural way of allowing the audience to feel how wild she was inside. She was a nonconformist and ahead of her time.” (Sean Wilson)

Another interview with the film director, Frances O'Connor, talking about the soundtrack: 

Joe Williams: What did the discussions between you Abel on the score for Emily look like? 

F.O'C.: We centred the score around the idea of experience, around the idea of her experience so the music wasn’t prescriptive, it didn’t tell the audience what to feel, it just shadowed what she was going through, in a way. For example, when Emily and Weightman have that moment where they meet in the college, and make love for the first time, we could have done a very romantic score that was kind of violins going crazy. Instead we did something very much about vibrations, this feeling of intoxication, so things like that are really fun to play with too, when you say "Let’s do something different in this moment." Not for the sake of difference, but so they reflect what’s going on in the piece.

And, of course, the complete soundtrack. 

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Emily: one of the best films of 2022

Emily has made it into Tatler’s 'definitive top 10' of the films of 2022.

7/10

Emily

Emma Mackey, the 26-year-old actress who rose to fame in Netflix’s Sex Education, is now flexing her talents in the realm of period drama. Mackey is stars in Emily, a biopic about the celebrated author, Emily Brontë, best known for the romantic novel, Wuthering Heights. Inspired by her own tumultuous love stories, the film follows the tale of Brontë's life in Victorian England, set against a backdrop of the sweeping Yorkshire Moors.

Sveriges Radio (Sweden) has an interview with director Frances O'Connor.

A contributor to Her Campus doesn't have good memories of reading Wuthering Heights.

However, I fell into a reading slump for around five years of my life when I entered high school. The doom of having to read Wuthering Heights in grade 9 while battling the highs and lows of high school led me to lose that love of reading.I instead turned to SparkNotes the night before a book report was due. I felt so guilty all the time for doing this, and knew my inner child would be scolding me. (Milla Ewart)

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Signification Process

 Iranian scholars' approach to Wuthering Heights:

An Analysis of Signification Process in "Wuthering Heights": Speech- Action, Movement-Action (Behavior) and Sense-Action

مرضیه بهادیوند چگینی, Ali Karimi Firuzjaei, Masoumeh Arjmandi

Tarbiat Modares University, 2022

The purpose of the semiotics of discourse approach is to communicate between semantic layers and differentiating units of the linguistic, social and intertdiscursive conext at the macro level in order to achieve meaning with the help of cognitive tools of text and discourse. This research interprets and explains how to produce, understand and receive meaning in the context of discourse systems in "Wuthering Heights" within the framework of the semiotics of discourse approach. Discourse systems include two categories, either they are based on Speech-Action and Movement-Action (Behavior) which create cognitive discourse systems or they are based on Sense-Action­ which are the generators of emotional discourse systems. In this research, the representation of Speech-Action, Movement-Action (Behavior) and Sense-Action­ and their feedback in the participants within the text and discourse of the novel has been discussed. Discourse analysis in the text and situational context of the novel based on the semiotics of discourse approach of Greimas is rooted in cognitive perspectives, because Speech-Action and Movement-Action build the infrastructure and a platform for the motivation of Sense-Action­ in the audience of the discursive context. Heathcliff and Catherine are two main characters of the novel who depict the Sense-Action­ of love along with the behavior and Speech-Action of revenge in the textual and intertextual semantic layers. Heathcliff gains the necessary mental, physical and financial competences and performs the action by going through the first stage of Sense-Action­.

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Bridgerton effect

The Guardian discusses the dangers of the so-called 'Bridgerton effect'.

The Costa award-winning author Sara Collins said she wrote The Confessions of Frannie Langton, about an enslaved Jamaican woman in London, as a “black Jane Eyre” to fill a gap, as there were not enough stories about the reality of black people’s history.

Collins said her gothic romance was “entirely different” from the “colourblind” casting of Netflix hit show Bridgerton: “This is colour-focused casting. Bridgerton is a fantasy; it’s a nice fantasy but what really interests me is we don’t lose sight of the truth.” (Tara Conlan)

The blunder of the day comes from Inside Croydon and its article on an 18th-century vicar of Croydon.

This was to be no Jane Eyre moment though. When Jane Austen’s heroine was about to marry Mr Rochester, it was Mr Briggs, the family solicitor, who shouted out that the groom was already married and stopped the ceremony from going ahead. 

AnneBrontë.org discusses 'The Stormy Passage of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette'.

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Wuthering Heights in Berkeley

The Wise Children's production of Wuthering Heights is now being performed for the first time in the West Coast of the US:

Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2022/23

Wuthering Heights

Adapted and Directed by Emma Rice

A National Theatre, Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic, and York Theatre Royal Co-Production

November 18, 2022- January 1, 2023

Acclaimed director Emma Rice (The Wild Bride, Tristan & Yseult, Romantics Anonymous) and her new company Wise Children make a triumphant return to Berkeley Rep with her latest wildly imaginative theatrical experience. Rescued from the Liverpool docks as a child, Heathcliff is adopted by the Earnshaws and taken to live at Wuthering Heights. He finds a kindred spirit in Catherine Earnshaw and a fierce love ignites. When forced apart, a brutal chain of events is unleashed. Emma Rice reimagines Emily Brontë’s gothic masterpiece with live music, dance, passion, hope, and a dash of impish irreverence, creating an intoxicating revenge tragedy for today.

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Bringing the Inherent Sensuality to the Forefront

The Manchester Evening News praises the cultural wonders of the North:

In the world of music, we have historic, musical talent factories in Chetham's and the Royal Northern. The North has produced and nurtured so many iconic and eclectic talents in the arts - from writers like the Brontë sisters and Burgess, to conductors like Sir John Barbirolli; actors including Ian McKellen, comediennes like Victoria Wood and Caroline Aherne; artists like David Hockney, directors Ridley Scott and Danny Boyle, opera's own Janet Baker. (Jenna Campbell)

The Mary Sue ranks the best movie soundtracks "of all time" (really meaning of the last twenty years):

11. Jane Eyre (2011)

Cary Fukunaga’s rendition of Jane Eyre managed to do away with the dull standards of period-pieces and bring the book’s inherent sensuality to the forefront. This was in large part due to the score, arranged by Dario Marianelli and featuring Jack Liebeck, which was pensive, moody, and even a little sultry–all features that were essential to a modern retelling of Jane Eyre.

That said, it does merit a lower ranking due to the fact that it reuses its central motif a little too often. The motif is gorgeous, and its re-usage lends a sort of dream-like quality to the film, but as far as soundtracks go, it just isn’t original enough for a higher ranking. (Madeline Carpou)

The filmography of Dara Singh in Daiji World:

Amid this, he also drifted into films, debuting with a cameo in no less than Dilip Kumar-Madhubala's "Jane Eyre" inspired "Sangdil" and was then seen as a wrestler in the Kishore Kumar-Vyjanthimala starrer "Pehli Jhalak" (1954). However, after this, there was a lull and it was only in the 1960s that he made his mark in the industry. (Vikas Datta)

A Little Bit Human lists the best NC-17 films:

4. Wide Sargasso Sea (1993)

Based on a novel of the same name, Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) is a movie about Antoinette Cosway, a West Indian creole heiress who owns a ton of land in Jamaica. The abolition of slavery plunges her family’s estate into poverty as the sugar plantation isn’t able to cope with its operation costs. She later marries Mr. Rochester (yes, the same one from Jane Eyre) to ease the costs but the two deeply distrust each other as Mr. Rochester looks down on her for having non-white heritage. (Allia Luzong)

Quotidiano dei Contribuenti (Italy) publishes a biographical account of Charlotte Brontë:

La vita nelle brughiere del nord dell’Inghilterra non era semplice. Pioggia, nebbia, freddo e tisi. Charlotte aveva perso la mamma ad appena cinque anni, le due sorelle maggiori pochi anni più tardi. Del resto, il giardino sul retro della canonica anglicana, dove viveva in quanto figlia del pastore di Haworth, era un cimitero, estremo giaciglio per le anime dei defunti del piccolo villaggio e quotidiano memento della precarietà umana. Tutto attorno, un paesaggio suggestivo, sì, ma desolato. (Read more) (Paola Gaudio) (Translation)

GameRant has another list of games with 'totally missable' romances:

That being said, [Assassins's Creed} Odyssey's flings get to the crux of the problematic portrayal of romance in gaming, it's so damn transactional. Bring an NPC enough legendary animal pelts and sparks will fly, collect some flowers for a Blacksmith and they'll dote over the player. It's not exactly Jane Eyre. Romance simply doesn't work this way in real-life. To gamify love runs the risk of reducing the intricacy of human relationships. (Cameron Tricker)

Refinery29 (Germany) and a list of classics including:

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre begleitet die gleichnamige Protagonistin von der Kindheit bis ins Erwachsenenalter, das schließt auch ihre spätere Liebe zu Mr. Rochester mit ein. Er ist der Gutsherr von Thornfield Hall, wo Jane als Pflegerin für sein Mündel Adèle arbeitet. Der Roman gilt aufgrund von Janes Unabhängigkeit und Brontës Umgang mit Sexualität und Feminismus als seiner Zeit voraus. (Eilish Gilligan and Stephanie Alvarez)

Die Tagespost (Germany) talks about Taylor Swift's latest album:

Wie wird es für Taylor Swift weitergehen? Der Aufstieg vom Popstar zur ernstzunehmenden Künstlerin war Swift bereits 2020 mit ihren Alben „folklore“ und „evermore“ gelungen. Auf diesen Indie-Alben schildert sie die Schicksale von historischen Persönlichkeiten wie auch von fiktiven Personen. Darin flicht sie unaufdringlich Zitate von Autorinnen und Dichtern wie den Brontë -Schwestern oder dem US-Dichter Miller Williams mit ein. (Sally-Jo Durney) (Translation)

CinePop (Brazil) and Queer (Germany) comment on the trailer of Emily and Expressen (Sweden) mentions the premiere of the film in Sweden next week. Charlotte Brontë quotes in the Jackson Progress-Argus and Parade. RP Online (Germany) talks about Mithu Sanya'ls Emily Brontë. 

Finally, To Bandon and then Cork is the new post of the Charlotte Bronte and Arthur Bell Nicholl's Honeymoon, 1854 blog.

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Wuthering Translated Heights

 A new translation of Wuthering Heights into Catalan:

Cims Borrascosos

Emily Brontë

Traductor/traductora:  Ferran Ràfols i Gesa

Viena Edicions. Col·lecció: Club Victòria 9

ISBN:  978-84-18908-86-6

November 2022

Cims borrascosos és la història de l’esclat volcànic i irrefrenable d’una passió tempestuosa

Quan el senyor Loockwod arriba a Cims Borrascosos per par-lar amb el propietari de la finca, el senyor Heathcliff, el qual li ha llogat durant una temporada una altra propietat seva, la majordoma, al servei de la família de fa anys, li explica la història d’aquestes cases i de les famílies que hi vivien.

A la mansió de Cims Borrascosos, hi vivia abans el senyor Earnshaw amb dos fills: en Hindley i la Catherine. Després d’un viatge, el pare va tornar a la finca amb un nen orfe que havia trobat pels carrers de Liverpool, que van anomenar Heathcliff i que, d’aleshores endavant, havia de ser tractat com un membre més de la família. La Catherine i en Heath-cliff, salvatges i feréstecs, van esdevenir inseparables, i es passaven els dies corrent pels erms amb el vent a la cara.

En morir el pare, en Hindley va heretar la mansió i va relegar en Heathcliff a la posició de servent, per la qual cosa, a banda de les humiliacions constants rebudes per part d’en Hindley, en Heathcliff es va anar convertint en un jove cada vegada més violent i tràgic.

Amb la intenció que la seva germana faci un bon matrimoni, en Hindley encoratja la Catherine a relacionar-se amb els seus elegants veïns, l’Edgar i la Isabella Linton, però ella no pot evitar sentir-se íntimament lligada a en Heathchliff, per bé que també se sent afalagada per les atencions del distingit Linton, un jove amable i bonhomiós. 

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Brontë Sisters Syndrome

It's a bad few days for Jane Eyre marrying Rochester. The Irish Times interviews writer Louise Kennedy and:

Trespasses is also a wonderfully believable love story, tender and erotic. How did you approach this aspect of your story? And again, which are your favourite love stories?

[...] My favourite love stories are Thérèse Racquin by Emile Zola, although it is arguably about lust rather than love, and Jane Eyre, up to the point she says, ‘Reader, I married him’; I went off it after that. (Martin Doyle)

Actress Lili Taylor really likes the novel, though. As she says on Talkhouse it is one of her Three Great Things:

Charlotte Brontë

For the past year and a half, I’ve listened to Jane Eyre every day. I’ve been doing some intense writing recently and when I take a break, I put on Jane Eyre. It’s a way for me to not go so far away from either my thoughts or feelings or where I’m at, to stay in the living world, but to take a break also. I listen to an audiobook of Jane Eyre on Libro.fm, an independent audiobook company which gives money to your favorite bookstore. (Mine goes to Books are Magic in Cobble Hill.) I have bookmarked my favorite scenes, so I can listen to them whenever I feel like it.

I identify with Charlotte Brontë; I feel like I have a friend in her. Almost every sentence of Jane Eyre is perfect. Charlotte combines her imagination with truth; she feels her way through what she writes, and yet she’s also a really good writer. So, Jane Eyre is both a wild ride and also something that intellectually takes me where I need to go. Charlotte sees the world as a friendly place, as a place that she’s welcome in. I don’t always feel like that, so I use her as a power of example. She wrote about how the stars she looks at are her friends, because they were there when she was a child and so they know her and she knows them. It’s so nice to feel connected and have that kind of connection. The book has also impacted me because it’s so in touch with passion. I think with any great writer – like some other favorites, such as George Eliot or Shakespeare – they capture the whole human experience. It’s like that great prayer by Kalidasa: “Look to this day, for it is life, the very life of life.” And, of course, like all the realities and verities of existence, by listening to Jane Eyre every day, I’m able to look to the day.

The Sunday Post says of writer Sally Gardner that she

The first book she devoured was the Emily Brontë classic Wuthering Heights. She has not looked back. (Sally McDonald)

Esquire selects 'The 22 Best Horror Books of 2022' and one of them is Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste.

In the dying embers of the 1960s, the two “forgotten women of Gothic fiction”—Jane Eyre’s Bertha Mason and Dracula’s Lucy Westenra—live an immortal life, fearing that one day their respective adversaries will return. Of course, they do! Rochester is a particularly vile creature—a Ted Bundy/Harvey Weinstein concoction who runs a harem of bewitched slaves from his sleek LA mansion. (Neil McRobert)

Today quotes Jenna Bush Hager's words after reading Katy Hays's The Cloisters.

And you can’t forget about Leo, the gardener at the Cloisters. “He reminds me of Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights.’ Everyone needs a Leo phase, and I don’t think I had one,” Jenna said jokingly. (Taylor Herzlich)

We love that in Corriere della Sera (Italy) the Izzo sisters seem to have invented the Brontë Sisters Syndrome.

Simona: «Io. Per dire che le mie sorelle sono tutte molto accudenti e allo stesso tempo manager coi tacchi a spillo. È un insegnamento di mamma, che è sempre curata, elegante. Ha farcito papà di musica, letteratura, cinema e gli ha permesso di avere una grande famiglia. E voglio aggiungere che abbiamo la sindrome delle sorelle Brontë: insieme, creiamo sempre qualcosa e ci siamo sempre aiutate. Il bello è che tra fratelli e sorelle si può dire qualunque cosa, perché il legame è così forte che puoi sempre tornare indietro. La forza dei fratelli è che, se non arrivano a uccidersi, saranno uniti per sempre». (Candida Morvillo) (Translation)

Yesterday marked the centenary of the death of Marcel Proust and so The Guardian had an article on where to begin reading his works.

In volume six, La Prisonnière (The Captive), one of the flowering girls, Albertine, has become the focus for the narrator’s passion, a passion founded in possessive jealousy, hence the title. He keeps Albertine – we don’t really know how – a virtual prisoner in the Paris apartment he shares with his parents and housekeeper, Françoise. Since we see things entirely from his point of view, Albertine remains a shadowy figure, which has prompted other writers to intervene. Like Jean Rhys telling the first Mrs Rochester’s story via Wide Sargasso Sea, the writer Jacqueline Rose has told Albertine’s, and she is not the only one; the director Chantal Akerman has done it too, in her film The Captive. (Lucy Raitz)

CinePop (Brazil) features the film Emily while BussumsNieuws (Netherlands) and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) both announce screenings in local film festivals (Filmhuis Bussum and .Stockholms Filmfestival).

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Sweet and Black

A couple of recent covers of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights:

Matthew Sweet has recently released a very faithful cover:

Sweet, known for his collaborations with guitarists over the years, nevertheless plays the guitar solo on the track as well as all the additional instruments except for the drums, played by longtime Sweet sideman Ric Menck. (...)

“I do love that song, but this got me thinking about a piano and vocal demo I once made of “Wuthering Heights,” the 1978 hit that first brought the 19 year-old Kate to the attention of the world of music. Like Kate herself, I have a strong amount of Irish blood in me, as my mother, like hers, was 100% Irish. In fact, I have dual citizenship between Ireland and America. Maybe this helps account for my always feeling a mystic kinship with Kate, despite our music being worlds apart in so many ways.

Regardless, my wife recently urged me to dig up that demo of mine, and although I couldn’t find a multitrack of it, I did locate a rough of the song I had bounced down many years ago. And so it is I came to overdub some guitars and other instruments and produce this single track for release in tribute to Kate. In this streaming world we live in, there is nothing to stop me from doing so. My friend Ric Menck played drums on this originally, and as it’s turned out, I have played everything else.

The track has no background vocals, in keeping with the original, to preserve the very personal nature of the lyrics and song. It is worth noting that despite the literary origins of the lyrics, Kate is, in fact, the Cathy of the song. ( Hannah Means-Shannon in Wildfire Music)

The English band Black midi also covers this song in his live concerts. Like this one in London, 13/07/2022:

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A woman's inheritance

Broadway World reports that Berkeley Rep is offering $25 tickets to the West Coast premiere of Wuthering Heights.

Performances of the West Coast premiere of Emma Rice's critically acclaimed Wuthering Heights-a reimagined version of Emily Brontë's gothic masterpiece with live music, dance, passion, hope, and a dash of impish irreverence, creating an intoxicating revenge tragedy for today-begin this Friday, November 18 at Berkeley Repertory Theater's Roda Theatre (2015 Addison St., Berkeley). Tickets are on sale and can be purchased exclusively online at berkeleyrep.org/shows/wuthering-heights/.

Berkeley Rep announces select $25 front row and loge box tickets for every performance of Wuthering Heights. Starting today (Wednesday, November 16) at noon, and continuing every Monday at noon PST, the front row and loge box tickets for that week's performances will be available for $25, with no order fees, through the Berkeley Rep website. Tickets will be available online only on a first-come, first-served basis. (Stephi Wild)

Daily Mail recommends some new books and this one's one of them:

Mt Soul Twin

by Nino Haratischvili (Scribe £16.99, 320 pp)

The ghost of Wuthering Heights hovers over this overheated novel by the Georgian author of the smash bestseller The Eighth Life, which pivots on the transgressive relationship between Stella and Ivo, brought up as siblings in the 1980s following the deaths of their respective mother and father, who were having an affair.

We meet Stella as an adult, now married and with a young son although barely holding it together, and who is ambushed by the abrupt re-entry, after several years, of Ivo, who wants her to travel with him to eastern Europe.

The novel then rewinds back into the torrid history of their relationship which, like that between Cathy and Heathcliff, feels mainly defined by self-destructive torment — a force that soon rears its head once again as Stella's adult life starts collapsing around her. But it's all terribly meandering and unexciting stuff, some feat given the subject matter. (Claire Allfree)

Now you don't even need to stick to 'facts' to criticise Jane Eyre. From The Smart Set:

An audible groan rose from my high school English class when we continued to read The Awakening, but the subject of much debate was Jane Eyre. We argued that Jane’s return to Mr. Rochester did not make her equal to him because she relied on a man’s inheritance. (Marie Johnson)

First of all, it was a woman's inheritance--it was Jane's. And Jane was then free to do whatever she wanted with it and yet she decided to go back to Rochester because she loved him. And secondly, is equality only measured in monetary terms?

The Brown Daily Herald has an article on reading and 'becoming other people'.

 Just like I felt it while reading Whitman in Weinstein’s class almost two years ago, I feel it while reading George Eliot and Salman Rushdie for class now, and everytime I re-read Wuthering Heights in the winter. I might appear to be sitting still for hours, turning pages, but all the while I feel myself internalize, expand, and dissolve. (Aalia Jagwani)

The Times reviews the soundtrack of Weyes Blood:

The appeal of this is that, for all the navel-gazing gloom, there is a certain detachment and black humour to Mering’s approach. The charity shop painting on the album cover depicts her as a doomed heroine, clutching her heart over a billowing white dress like a latter-day Cathy of Wuthering Heights, and there is a touch of subterfuge here that takes Mering away from being a straightforward conveyer of heartfelt emotion. (Will Hodgkinson)

Film Companion wonders why 'ghosts are always female'.

The spirit of the unhappy woman is most often credited to the 18th century Gothic tradition of novels, prominently Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. (Sohini Chattopadhyay)

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Representation of the British empire

 A new Brontë-related thesis:

Representation of the British empire in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea

Karolína Kiliánová

Západočeská univerzita v Plzni, 2022

This thesis mainly focuses on the comparison of the main characters in two famous novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. In the novel Jane Eyre, the thesis will analyze the characters of Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason Rochester and the character of Mr. Rochester and in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea the characters of Antoinette Cosway and Mr. Rochester as well as in the novel Jane Eyre and it will introduce side characters as well. Both authors used numerous associations that concern The British Empire in their books following the most distinguished which are imperialism and colonialism. Both imperialism and colonialism can be found in the plot itself, in the main characters and side characters and their surroundings. The thesis focuses on the characters and their role in the stereotypical imperialist and colonized world and how the side character's behaviour affected the behaviour of the main characters who are Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway. This thesis also proves that the characters in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea happen to be linked a lot more with the main focus which is imperialism and colonialism.

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'I would say this is the best I’ve ever done'

Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights opens at Berkeley Rep tomorrow and The Mercury News has an article about it.

“‘Wuthering Heights’ is such a big part of the British culture, it’s been in my life always,” Rice says in a Zoom call from the U.K. “I’m from the middle of England, and we used to go up to the Yorkshire moors for holidays. I can remember walking with my mum when I was little to go and see the ruin that they think inspired ‘Wuthering Heights.’ And I was very, very disappointed. It’s this pile of tiny bricks in the middle of nowhere that I’d been forced to walk to in the rain. And then I loved it as a teenager. I loved the gothic romance of it.”

“Wuthering Heights” is the story of the mysterious orphan Heathcliff and his campaign of unrelenting vengeance against the upper-class family that took him in and mistreated him. It’s also a tale of the doomed love between him and his foster sister Cathy that ties them together even as they torment each other.

“It’s agonizing to watch people be the worst of themselves,” Rice reflects. “But I do feel there’s a motor under there which pulls you through, because you understand these people, and you are willing them through. Emily Brontë makes us work for it, but she does give us hope. But my goodness, it’s hard fought for. And I love it for that.” [...]

Rice decided that she had to adapt ‘Wuthering Heights’ in 2016, spurred by the Syrian refugee crisis that led to large migrant camps such as the Calais Jungle in France (as seen in the play “The Jungle” that came to the Curran in 2019).

“Of the many conversations that were happening, one of them was how many unaccompanied child refugees would Britain be willing to take in,” Rice recalls. “And I can remember raging at the radio, ‘Take them all, for goodness’ sake!’ If we can’t take in the most vulnerable human beings on the planet, we have no right to be frightened of what might happen to us in 20 years. And I thought, wasn’t Heathcliff an unaccompanied child refugee? So I pulled down my copy, and he was. He was found on the Liverpool docks. He has dark skin and dark hair, and he speaks a foreign language that nobody understands. In my version, I can remember when I decided to write in the words, ‘Be careful what you seed.’ If we do not seed compassion and care, be careful what happens.”

Rice describes her adaptation as “epic, elemental, musical, and hopeful.” As Berkeley audiences have learned to expect from her work, it’s full of music and dance, puppets and dynamic theatricality.

“I would say this is the best I’ve ever done,” she adds. “As I get older and my teams mature, we keep pushing ourselves.” (Sam Hurwitt)

The Yorkshire Post thinks that the 'Arts Council funding represents a vote of confidence in the region'.

It’s a vote of confidence for the region and is testament to the vast talent we have here. After all, this is the place that’s produced David Hockney, the Brontë sisters, the Arctic Monkeys, and so many more. Our artists, musicians, actors and writers are known around the world.

This matters for local pride, for our regional identity. It matters because it puts us on the global map. It matters for our economy too. Vibrant city regions attract people, they encourage us to go out and spend – not only in the theatres and galleries themselves but in the surrounding restaurants, bars and shops.

It means we can tell the next generation of Northern artists, performers and technicians that they don’t have to up sticks to the capital due to lack of opportunity here. (Henri Murison)

And The Guardian has an article on how Yorkshire 'became Marvel’s go-to location'.

Perhaps Calderdale felt under pressure, given the precedent set by North Yorkshire: parts of the latest Mission: Impossible were filmed on its moors last year. “There’s a picture of my friends with Tom Cruise in the middle of nowhere in the Dales,” says Chance-Thompson, “before he ran away to parachute off a cliff or whatever.” Or maybe the pressure was coming from neighbouring Bradford, home of literary mecca Haworth and the wiley, windy moors of Brontë Country, the location of endless Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre adaptations and related productions, the most recent being Emily. (Hollie Richardson)

Still locally, Keighley News reports on how Haworth is 'set to sparkle this Christmas'.

Late-night shopping – until 8pm – will take place on Thursdays December 1 and 22, and the Bronte Parsonage Museum will also be open late. (Alistair Shand)

The Portalist recommends '8 Stunning Gothic Fantasy Books' and one of them is

A Breath of Eyre

By Eve Marie Mont

Emma Townsend has never felt like she belonged. At least, never outside of stories. They’ve always helped her feel like less of an outside at her exclusive prep school, filled the absence from her mother’s death, and navigated her confusing feelings for her long-time friend Gray Newman. But her life changes when she received an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre. During a lightning storm, somehow Emma is transported into Jane’s body and begins living her life. And things have never been better. Moving back and forth between two realities, Emma uncovers secrets in both that force her to ask: does her future belong in the pages of a book? Or in her own unwritten story? (Jena Brown)

Independent reports that,

The Brooklyn Public Library announced that Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is its most borrowed book. [...]

The BPL has thanked all the authors on its book list in a tweet. The list includes Dr Seuss, Emily Brontë, Harper Lee, Louisa May Alcott and Eric Carle among others. (Peony Hirwani)

The Times Daily Quiz includes the question:

In 1837, who wrote the poem To a Wreath of Snow in the voice of Augusta Almeda, the Queen of Gondal? (Olav Bjortomt)

Digital Mafia Talkies tells all about the film Emily and its background and Ashley Manning and Martín Cid (Spain) have articles about it too.

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